Idiot, idiot, idi?—
“Maybe.”
Curling my lips inwards. Squeezing my eyes. “I don’t know why I said that, I wasn’t going to—” Cold air shifts through us. “I’d never do something like that. Out here. Or ever, actually. Not that it…” His eyes darken, matching with the night sky. “Never mind. Ignore me, please.”
“Would ignoring it make you forget?” He asks. I’m painfully aware of how the presence of his hand brushes against my knees with each small movement. Seems to be inevitable considering the swing is moving on its own.
“No,” I shake my head. “But at least I’d think you forgot it.”
He looks at me. Deeply. Waiting. Until eventually: “There is nothing I can forget about you, Nova. Even if I tried.”
Then suddenly I’m transfixed into a dark emerald sky. I’ll burn, I know it. I’ll fall. And it’ll be painful, heartbreaking, death-inviting.
As easily as I’m swooped in, I’m flushed out because what the heck? Deanhatesme.Morethan hates me. He doesn’t want me anywherenear him, backtalks about me, and then acts like this?
With embarrassing effort I don’t have time to think about, I move the swing back and get off of it. Not caring if it whacks him in the face after. “What’s your deal, Mr. Vuk? Did you follow me?”
“How many times did I tell you to call me Dean?”
“Once,” My back digs into a tree far from him. It’s only like three feet away, but it’s better than being close enough to see the outlines of his tattoos trickling through the sleeves of his shirt. They twine over each knuckle and instead of being trapped by the vines, the vines are trapped by him. “Answer the question, Mr. Vuk.”
His perusing scowl licks over my skin like burning flames. “No.”
“No?” I scoff.No, he didn’t follow me or no, he doesn’t want to answer?
He lifts himself off the ground, my phone in his hand when it buzzes. The bright light illuminates his face.
He’s an undeserved gift from God.
Wordlessly, almost begrudgingly, he rounds the swing to return my phone.
Please let us know the name of the person you’d like to go on a date with. If the person you choose also picks you, then you will be matched. If they don’t, you will sit this date out. This date will be an item from the boys’ bucket lists.
I’ve barely finished reading it when Dean says, “Pick me.”
“What?” I pull my phone away from my face. There’s a line of desperation coating across his face. “Give me one good reason to.”Other than you being my boss.
With a perpetually furrowed brow, “I’ll tell you why I’m here.”
That’sveryconvincing. And look, under other circumstances I’d stand my ground. But I’vebeenasking him. “We’ll see,” is what I reply while typing four letters.
There’s that awkward tension again.
Dean perches his shoulders abnormally high, his eyelids must geta headache from the fidgeting.
Oddly, it’s cute.
“You’re not very good at this,” I say. “The whole approaching girls, going on dates thing, are you?”
“I approached you.”
Hence, the observation, Ogre.
“Ogre?” He grunts in response.
Did I say that out loud?
“You did,” a pause. “Lovebird.”
